Choking Off Insurgents

U.s. Boosts Security With Cordon Plan

TARMIYA, Iraq — Before the U.S. military moved into this northeast Baghdad suburb and cordoned it off with six miles of concertina wire, insurgents had the run of the place.

Almost daily attacks on the police had whittled down the 40-man police force by half. U.S. patrols often were targeted by car bombs and roadside explosives.

But during a short, highly choreographed trip Thursday to Tarmiya's town center that was arranged by the U.S. military, residents of the predominately Sunni Arab town expressed gratitude to U.S. troops for driving out insurgents and beginning reconstruction projects that include water services, a hospital renovation, a road-building program and a refurbished youth center.

Local politicians and other residents say that security has improved dramatically.

Tarmiya is an example of a cordon strategy used in Tal Afar, Fallujah and other towns in Anbar province, in which U.S. troops clear areas of insurgents, form a perimeter and develop Iraqi security forces in the hope that they will be strong enough to hold off the insurgency once American soldiers leave.

The military presented Tarmiya, a verdant, palm-shaded village along the Tigris River, as a good news story: A Sunni community that welcomes American troops and dislikes the predominantly Sunni insurgency.

But townspeople also said that while active insurgents no longer live among them, they are unable to live normal lives because their freedom of movement is limited. Shiite militias have essentially cut them off from the capital.

"My 2-year-old son has hemophilia but there is no medicine here," said Ahmad Abdullah, a construction worker. "Sometimes I try to go to Baghdad, but I am afraid because gunmen kill and kidnap those who try to go there."

Taxi driver Qusay Abdel Hussein said a woman who was trying to go to Baghdad to shop for food last week was killed while en route, and that he knew a man who was kidnapped on the way to Baghdad and is being held for ransom.

"This is a rural place, and we have many farmers who can't take their harvests to Baghdad. We can't take documents to the government or see our relatives in Baghdad," Hussein said. "I haven't been to Baghdad for eight months now because of the bad situation. I need money, but I can't get it because all the banks are in Baghdad."

Hussein said that he and friends and relatives have gone into debt to avoid making the dangerous trek to the capital.

Despite the difficulty of reaching the capital, Sheikh Jassim Said, head of Tarmiya's government council, said his town has become a haven for Sunnis driven out of Baghdad and other predominantly Shiite areas. The number of families that have arrived from places such as Baghdad and Nasiriyah and Basra in the south has reached 1,300, he said.